The past week has been filled with Little 500 excitement as fans were able to get a good look at all the teams for the upcoming race through Qualifications, Individual Time Trials and Miss N Outs.
This weekend will be the last event in the Spring Series, Team Pursuit. It will take place starting at 1 p.m. Sunday, April 8, at Bill Armstrong Stadium.
For team pursuit, two teams of the same gender ride simultaneously on the track. Bikes are placed flat on the ground at opposite ends of the track in either turn two or turn four. Riders must stand 20 feet from their respective bicycles.
When the horn sounds, each team’s first rider will sprint to their bike and begin the 15-lap race for men and 12-lap race for women.
This is a relay-style event that can be completed with four riders but only requires three. Teams are allowed to drop one rider at any time during the event, and once this occurs, the rider must exit the track. Ultimately, teams are competing for the best time to move on to the next round. In the final, the two teams with the best times will compete against each other to find the Team Pursuit champion.
Riders looking to pass must do so in the outside lane. If a team fails to do so, it will be immediately disqualified from the event. If a rider falls off their bike or crashes, it is the rider's decision to continue the race. The rider can either continue to compete in the event or leave the track and withdraw from the event.
Scoring will be determined by the time each team takes to complete the allotted laps. A team earns its place from a combination of its overall score multiplied by four. The fastest two teams will compete in the final heat and the winner of the final will earn four points, while the second place team will receive eight points. The goal of this event is to receive the least amount of points possible.
Delta Gamma and Kappa Alpha Theta are team's to watch on the women's side this year. Delta Gamma are defending Team Pursuit champions and this years qualifications champions as well with the final time of 8:08.37. Kappa Alpha Theta, who finished just one second behind, qualified with a time of 8:09.31.
For the men, the teams to watch are less consistent. Black Key Bulls won last year's Team Pursuit with a time of 9:05.12, but they also qualified in eighth place this year. Sigma Phi Epsilon, who has placed in the top 10 the past six years in Team Pursuit, qualified in fourth place this year just five seconds behind the qualifications champions, giving them a good possibility of ranking very high in this year's Team Pursuit event.
Team Pursuit will begin at 1 p.m.
